TINDERBOX

In Los Angeles, three people are murdered every day. This is the story of two of those victims, who died together, outside of a skate park in the Valley. Prim Decker, a fifty-year old comic on the brink of stardom and thirty-year old local skate legend, Casey Van Pelt are found shot dead in the woods bordering a Valley skate park. The two LAPD Detectives assigned to solve the case -- old punk, veteran Beatrice Elias and newly minted, prudish, Deborah Manoukian, not only must figure out who and why they were killed, but how did two people who never should’ve met in life, died together. Once they start investigating, it becomes all too clear that dating apps and social media have become the great unifier with no one escaping their digital footprints. Even the detectives polarizing opinions about the current hook-up culture challenges each other’s thinking, which hampers their search for the killer. Deborah’s stern judgment regarding the female victim’s post divorce sex life pushes her mentor Beatrice to almost kick her off the case. Instead, they go on separate investigation paths – Deborah for Prim, Beatrice for Casey – to find out on their own what may have happened. As they dive into the muck of clues slowing leading them to the killer, both detectives reluctantly discover that their own complicated pasts aren’t that dissimilar of their victims. When Beatrice is forced to revisit the site where she lost her skate pro son to gang violence, it makes her finally confront the grief she’s pushed away for far too long. In trying to get into her victim’s head, Deborah gets dangerously entangled into the digital life of her sexually unashamed victim, forcing her to comes to terms with her own past victimhood and let go of the tightness of what she believes modern love should be. Going deep into their own lives, is exactly what leads them to solve the case and catch the killer. And once the job is done, the two adversary detectives can let go of their own heartbreaking pasts to become better cops, partners and people.